OSCE, JCCC monitors inspect Gorlovka, shelled overnight to Saturday

Five civilians were injured, including one child during the shelling, the mayor’s office said

MOSCOW, August 1. /TASS/. Russian monitors from the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination (JCCC) supervising implementation of the ceasefire agreement alongside monitors of the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) of the European security watchdog OSCE have completed work in the town of Gorlovka, the scene of overnight shelling, the Defence Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) said on Saturday.

"Representatives of the JCCC and OSCE SMM have left Gorlovka where Ukrainian shells were exploding at night," the Donetsk news agency cited the ministry’s source as saying. "The representatives of both organisations inspected destruction."

In early hours of Saturday, Gorlovka came under heavy shelling from positions of Kiev forces. Five civilians were injured, including one child, the mayor’s office said.

According to the DPR defence ministry, Gorlovka comes under regular shelling by Ukrainian troops. It says 164 civilians, including 16 children, have been killed in that city in Ukraine’s troubled south-eastern region this year. Another 501 people have been wounded.

Sources from the city mayor’s office said some 2,000 houses have been destroyed this year.

Talks of the Normandy Four (Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine) leaders on the Ukrainian crisis took place in the Belarusian capital Minsk on February 12. Simultaneously, regular talks of the Contact Group were held in Minsk on February 10-12.

Both talks ended by adoption of a 13-point package of measures, which envisages a ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons and pullback of all heavy weapons by both parties to locations equidistant from the disengagement line in order to create a security zone at least 50 kilometres wide for artillery systems with a calibre of 100 mm or more, a zone of security 70 kilometres wide for multiple rocket launchers and a zone 140 kilometres wide for multiple rocket launchers Tornado-S, Uragan and Smerch and the tactical rocket systems Tochka-U.

The final document says that the Ukrainian troops are to be pulled back away from the current line of engagement and the militias of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, from the engagement line set by the Minsk Memorandum of September 19, 2014.

The DPR completed the withdrawal of its heavy weapons by March 1. Nevertheless, in recent days the DPR residential areas have come under heavy shelling from the positions of the Ukrainian army.